I had an amazing weekend chocked full of good friends and great music. I was lucky enough to be invited to attend Larry Joe Taylor’s 7th Annual Rhymes and Vines shindig out on the Melody Mountain Ranch and what a shindig it was.
Instead of trying to tell a story, I am just going to give y’all bullet points. These are not in any chronological order and literally have no rhyme or reason. (See what I did there?)
-The Rhymes and Vines concerts are held on the Ultra Stage aka the little stage…not the garganuous stage that they use for the main shows at LJT in April.
-The entire vibe of this festival is low key and chill. I didn’t see a single frat boy wearing only a Spiderman mask and cowboy boots, any wasted 19 year old girls peeing in coolers or even a single pair of sloppy boobs being pulled out for Kevin Fowler. The people that were there were there for a reason…to hangout with friends, family and listen to music. It was so refreshing.
-I kept trying to strategically put myself in the path of Walt Wilkins because my mission was to make him my new best friend. My mission failed, but I did get to introduce him and before he sang he said it was nice to meet me. I was giddy.
-I realllllly wanted to met the Blacktop Gypsy chicks, but I chickened out. Their perfectly curled waves intimidated the hell out of me. I CAN NOT MAKE MY HAIR DO THAT. I have tried and tried. I have the hair fixing handicap. Oh, and their lipglosses were all perfect too.
-Kylie Rae Harris is HUGE. Seriously gianormous. I think she is carrying triplets. She must have pregnancy brain because she had to pull a Luke Bryan and write the words to the national anthem on her hand to remember them. Oh…and her hair was terrible. It was worse than mine. (That was all sarcasm. I don’t need any more hate mail.)
-Everyone I talked to randomly offered me an adderall. Seriously. I think adderall is the new big thing.
-Since I have a God given talent for ALWAYS wearing the wrong thing, it happened again. I wore my cropped denim capris because I thought it was going to be cooler. I was wrong. I had straight up ass crack sweat all damned day.
-Ken Tondre plays the drums with Kevin Fowler and I never in my life realized how much equipment that took. He had ipads, a flux capacitor, coconut stick wax. I could go on and on. It was cute, but Ringo never had all that stuff, just saying. (And calm down people, I told him that same thing too.)
-I am not the best band intro’er. I can’t pull off the “HOW ARE YOU DOING TOOOONITE, ARE YOU READY TO PARRRRRTYYYY” shtick so I don’t even try. I really have to work on that. Wait, no I don’t. I’d never talk like that and it would sound as stupid and cheesy as the other people that don’t and do.
-William Clark Green and I hugged it out. I forgot why we didn’t like each other. I think it was something about Cher. He also had on a giant hat all day and night.
-I absolutely adore the Damn Quails.
-I can’t help but laugh my ass off at how I have somehow tricked people into believing that I am in anyway important in this music scene. I am not humblebragging, I am just saying that it is so weird for me because if people only knew the profound level of self-hate I carry around with me every where I go and how I am always seconds away from either Fight or Flight mode. 99% of the time all I want to do is go and hide in my bedroom behind this computer and pet my dogs. I have to learn to enjoy any fruits of my hard work.
-Josh Weathers.
Damn.
Ok, truth? Well, you know how the buzz is about people sometimes…sometimes it is just that, buzz. I saw Josh perform at the Lone Star Music store before Greenfest and I don’t remember taking away anything it. I mean, he definitely has a look that works for him but I only heard a few acoustic songs. He had a very high voice and yeah…he sang. Honestly, I am not sure I was paying attention because there was so much else going on and I wasn’t familiar with his songs.
Well, Josh was on stage performing with his full band but I was sucked into the “I’m Rita Ballou, bitch” vortex and was visiting and didn’t get to the stage right away. I was going tinkle in the bad ass fancy, clean and AIR CONDITIONED mobile potty when I heard Josh start his infamous rendition of my all time favorite song “I Will Always Love You”. I had heard his version on YouTube, but I got the chills and damn near fell off the toilet. It was that good.
I finally made my way to the stage and the only way I could describe the energy of Josh’s show is when one of the ladies my mom used to take care of when she was working for Home Health, Miss Willie died and we went to her funeral services at the Sweet Home Baptist Church. (If you are from Shitville, you realize that Sweet Home doesn’t usually have too many white folks in their congregation.)
There were saxophones, horns, maybe a triangle or 3…perhaps an trombone. I have no idea what was going on, but it was entertaining as hell.
-I want Seth Canadanaanadanan to teach me how to play the harmonica.
-This is Walker Texas Ranger. He is a “champagne” labrador which is much fancier that a yellow lab. He lives at the LaQuinta Inn.
-One of these days I am going to crash one of them there Jody Lee Pickin’ Parties with my cowbell and shake weight! They know how to get their party and pickin’ on.
-I thought Amy the TV Cooking Chick would have been taller. She is ittty bitty…like 4’8. She thought I’d be older and much more bitter.
-I couldn’t find a funnel cake any where on the premises.
-Whoever was in our motel room before us set the heater on as high as it could go and just left. It was about 8203934 degrees when we walked into the room and smelled like moldy ass.
-The all star sing along of “Up On Cripple Creek” might have been my favorite moment of the entire weekend.
-I have no idea how these band kids all stay so THIN. Their waists are all so tiny…like Mary Kate and Ashley circa 2001 tiny.
-6 Market Blvd. was a huge crowd favorite. It was sure fun to watch how they worked the audience because those peeps couldn’t get enough and lapped them up.
-We didn’t stay for Kevin because we were POOPED and I have his show/set memorized…and I’m not drinking much anymore.
Stay tuned for Day Two!
To be continued…
~Rb
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You have to include John Hall partying down for day two!
Ha! Oh yeah. I have him in my notes. They couldn’t keep him OFF the stage!
He was standing on a cooler in the crowd next to me and kept pulling bottles of 40 creek out. It was like having your very own whiskey fairy.
Yes and these were being passed through the crowd. I may have consumed some :)
I too loved the damn quails. I had never heard josh weathers and thought he rocked as did the tejas brothers. next big event for me STEAMBOAT! bring on that snow.
Glad you came out and enjoyed Rita! This is my favorite concert/festival all year. I’ve even gone to it prego!
Great notes, Rita. My wonderful and talented daughter, Abbey, arranged the Up on 40 (Cripple) Creek performance as a tribute to John Hall, the whisky maker. I’m hoping it was taped by someone. I even left my post as backstage security (where I acquired many new names) to see the song. Was nice to meet you, btw.